The ftile agreed fo well with the burlesque, that the ignorant thought it could become nothing else. Every body is pleased with that work. But to judge rightly of the other, requires a perfect maftery of poetry and criticism, a just contempt of the little turns and witticisms now in vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and description. All that have any taste of poetry will agree, that the great burlesque is much to be preferred to the low. It is much easier to make a great thing appear little, than a little one great: Cotton and others of a very low genius have done the former; but Philips, Garth, and Boileau only the latter. A picture in miniature is every painter's talent; but a piece for a cupola, where all the figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the eye, requires a master's hand. It must still be more acceptable than the low burlesque, because the images of the latter are mean and filthy, and the language itself entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. The ftile of Billingsgate would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentleman would take but little pleasure in language, which he would think it hard to be accofted in, or in reading words which he could not pronounce without blushing. The lofty burlesque is the more to be admired, because, to write it, the author must be master of two of the moft different talents in nature. A talent to find out and expofe what is ridiculous, is very different from that which is to raise and elevate. We must read Virgil and Milton for the one, and Horace and Hudibrafs for for the other. We know that the authors of excellent comedies have often failed in the grave stile, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and Laughter are of fuch oppofite natures, that they are seldom created by the fame perfon. The man of mirth is always obferving the follies and weakneffes, the ferious writer the virtues or crimes of mankind; one is pleased with contemplating a beau, the other a hero. Even from the fame object they would draw different ideas: Achilles would appear in very different lights to Therfites and Alexander. The one would admire the courage and greatnefs of his foul; the other would ridicule the vanity and rafhness of his temper. As the fatyrist says to Hannibal: -I curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas, & declamatio fias. The contrariety of ftile to the fubject pleases the more strongly, because it is more furprising; the expectation of the reader is pleasantly deceived, who expects an humble stile from the fubject, or a great fubject from the stile. It pleases the more univerfally because it is agreeable to the tafte both of the grave and the merry; but more particularly fo to those who have a relish of the best writers, and the nobleft fort of poetry. I fhall produce only one paffage out of this poet, which is the misfortune of his Galligaskins: My Galligafkins, which have long withstood rest reft goes on to a prodigious height; and a man in Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint. Is it not surprising that the fubject should be fo mean, and the verse so pompous ? that the least things in his poetry, as in a microscope, fhould grow great and formidable to the eye? especially confidering that, not understanding French, he had no model for his ftile; that he should have no writer to imitate, and himfelf be inimitable? that he fhould do all this before he was twenty? at an age, which is ufually pleased with a glare of false thoughts, little turns, and unnatural fuftian; at an age, at which Cowley, Dryden, and I had almost faid Virgil, were inconfiderable. So foon was his imagination at its full strength, his judgement ripe, and his humour complete. This poem was written for his own diverfion, without any defign of publication. It was communicated but to me; but soon spread, and fell into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, by Ben. Bragge; and impudently faid to be corrected by the author. This grievance is now grown more epidemical; and no man now has a right to his own thoughts, or a title to his own writings. Xenophon anfwered the Perfian, who demanded his arms, "We have nothing now left but our arms " and our valour; if we furrender the one, "how fhall we make ufe of the other?" Poets have nothing but their wits and their writings; and if they are plundered of the latter, I don't fee what good the former can do them. To pirate, and publickly own it, to prefix their names to the works they steal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but in England. It will found oddly to posterity, that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the most wife, moft learned, and moft generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better fecured than that of a scholar; that the pooreft manual operations fhould be more valued than the nobleft product of the brain; that it should be felony to rob a cobler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best author of his whole subsistence; that nothing should make a man a fure title to his own writings but the ftupidity of them: that the works of Dryden fhould meet with less encouragement than thofe of his own Flecnoe, or Blackmore; that Tillotfon and St. George, Tom Thumb and Temple, fhould be fet on an equal foot. This is the reason why this very paper has been fo long delayed; and while the most impudent and fcandalous libels are publickly vended by the pirates, this innocent work is forced to fteal abroad as if it were a libel. But Our present writers are, by these wretches, reduced to the fame condition Virgil was, when the centurion feized on his estate. I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Mæcenas of the prefent age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips; it helped him to a reputation, which he neither defired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himself ca pable; pable; but the event fhewed his modefty. And it was reasonable to hope, that he, who could raise mean fubjects fo high, should still be more elevated on greater themes; that he, that could draw fuch noble ideas from a fhilling, could not fail upon fuch a fubject as the duke of Marlborough, which is capable of heightening even the most low and trifling genius. And, indeed, most of the great works which have been produced in the world, have been owing less to the poet than the patron. Men of the greatest genius are fometimes lazy, and want a spur; often modeft, and dare not venture in publick; they certainly know their faults in the worst things; and even their best things they are not fond of, because the idea of what they ought to be is far above what they are. This induced me to believe that Virgil defired his works might be burnt, had not the fame Auguftus that defired him to write them, preserved them from destruction. A fcribling beau may imagine a Poet may be induced to write, by the very pleasure he finds in writing; but that is feldom, when people are neceffitated to it. I have known men row, and use very hard labour, for diversion, which, if they had been tied to, they would have thought themselves very unhappy. But to return to Blenheim, that work fo much admired by fome, and cenfured by others. I have often wifhed he had wrote it in Latin, that he might be out of the reach of the empty criticks, who would have as little understood his meaning in that language, as they do his beauties in his own. Kk Falle |